


Shift

by yeats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Remus saw the boy for the first time on the train." Hogwarts, 1971.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imochan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/gifts).



Remus saw the boy for the first time on the train, but it's only at the Sorting Feast that he learns his name.

They were late, he and his parents -- they got lost navigating the streets of London, Remus's face pressed to the car window as his mother whistled them around corners at truly terrifying speeds and his father mumbled, "Could've saved a whole lot of bother if we'd gone by Floo." 

By the time Remus left them both at the platform, disentangling from their embraces and dispatching all manner of promises to write every day, the scarlet locomotive was already shrieking puffs of steam. Each car he ventured into was full, teeming with students who all looked a bit older and a bit bigger than Remus. He dragged his trunk case along behind him, the sharp corners hitting his ankles every few steps.

The boy was sitting all alone near the back of the train, the door to his compartment half ajar. He looked...Remus didn’t have a word to describe him. He was huddled at the very edge of the bench seat, his knees tucked into his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Pale, even at the end of summer, with his dark hair and black robes drawing an even starker contrast to his skin. 

"What do you want?" the boy snapped. He stared hard at Remus, gray eyes narrowing as if making a silent assessment. Remus felt a blush hit his cheeks. 

"Ah, c'n I sit here?" His palms felt cool with sweat; Remus shifted the handle of his trunk from one hand to the other, wiping them discreetly on his robes.

"No," he said, chin jutting up. "Go find somewhere else."

"There is nowhere else," Remus frowned, "all the other compartments are full up, and you've got this one to yourself."

"Does it look like I give a toss?" The boy uncoiled himself in a series of deliberate movements: uncrossing his arms, rolling out his shoulders and stretching his legs to prop his feet up on the opposite seat cushion. "Go on, shove off."

"That isn't fair."

"The fuck does 'fair' have anything to do with it?" and Remus had never heard anyone use that word, not out loud and like they meant it, but it rolled almost gracefully off the other boy's tongue, as though he went about being cruel to people all the time. "Get stuffed."

Remus had no idea what to say to something like that, the sheer wrongness of the whole situation swelling up in his chest and tightening his gut until he could barely see straight. Before he could open his mouth to try and respond, there was a warm hand on his shoulder, and a friendly voice behind him, saying, "Don't even bother with him, mate."

Remus turned around: another boy, spectacles and a knowing grin. "Lost cause, trying to get that one to be anything but a right berk."

"Sod off," snarled the boy in the compartment, and the other boy winked, "See what I mean?"

"But I've nowhere to sit," Remus said, looking between them.

"Of course you do. With me." An extended hand. "James Tiberius Potter, at y'r service."

Remus smiled. James's hand in his own felt sure, dry and warm. "Remus John Lupin," he said, and James's smile stretched wider.

"Well then, Remus John Lupin," he looped his arm easily over Remus's shoulders, "let's leave our friend here to his pathetic little strop and go track down the snack cart."

Walking away, as James chattered merrily about pus-flavored jellybeans and did Remus know which house he wanted to be in, because James was a sure thing for Gryffindor and it'd be a right shame for Remus to end up anywhere else, Remus chanced a glance back at the other boy, who sat curled in on himself again, gazing at the countryside as it sped past.

 

\---

 

When the boy's called up at the Sorting Feast -- "BLACK, SIRIUS" -- the entire room goes dead quiet. Queued up midway down the line, Remus can see even the teachers watching. Professor McGonagall, who reminds Remus a bit of his Aunt Midge, leans over to whisper something to Professor Dumbledore as Sirius Black walks up to the Hat, but the headmaster holds up a hand to hush her.

The tension stretches on, grows and expands in the cavernous space of the Great Hall. Sirius sits with his eyes screwed shut, still as stone except for his clasped hands twisting together in his lap. Remus wonders what the Hat must be whispering in his ear: it looks like they're arguing. He swallows back panic -- can the Hat just decide that they've made a mistake, and toss people out? If it could see everything in your head, did that mean, like... everything? His mind flashes through a succession of embarrassing images, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself. 

Sirius shakes his head, sharp and adamant, as if trying to dislodge the Hat. His bottom lip is worried and gnawed, frown lines scored across his brow.

"This is most unusual," the Hat says, each word picking up added volume, "but if you're really sure, then the only thing I can think for it is -- GRYFFINDOR!" 

The room erupts with sound, like a vase tipping off a shelf and shattering: shouts, arguments, heated whispers at all four tables. Sirius rips the Hat off his head and stalks to the end of the Gryffindor table, shoulders squared and his arms stiff at his sides. 

Clapping, Remus thinks. No one's clapping.

 

\--

 

Sirius sleeps in the bed closest to the door. 

At home, Remus always wakes up early; the window in his bedroom faces east, and he remembers being very young and watching the sun crawl its way across the floorboards towards him, catching his toys and glazing each of them with orange light. He'd wait there, tucked in the verge of morning, until his father came to the door on quiet feet and they could slip out for a walk in the dewy fields, or make breakfast for his mum in the kitchen, Remus sitting on the countertop and clapping in delight as his father charmed the wooden spoon to stir the batter and the berries to arrange themselves in clever shapes on the plate.

Here, though, Sirius is always gone by the time the rest of them are awake, already dressed and showered and out the door. Remus takes to checking every morning, poking his head around the half-opened curtains. Sirius tosses in his sleep, Remus hears him sometimes, but in the morning his bedsheets are always made with crisp corners, as though no one's been there at all.

Some days, Sirius comes and sits with Remus and James at breakfast, sliding in across from them without a word. They've come to some understanding, Sirius and James, developed a mutual regard that allows for the three of them to sit together in relative quiet, punctuated by an occasional mocking comment directed at Peter or the girls. (Poor Peter still won't sit with them when Sirius is there, although he won't say exactly what happened.) 

Yet other mornings he's nowhere to be found until lunch, often enough that Remus notices it, but not so often as to form a pattern. Sirius seems to exist on an entirely different calendar than the rest of them, keeps his own hours, his own counsel. 

"He's so strange," Remus says to James one day as they sit in the Library. Their History of Magic class has been given the period to research their next essay: seven inches on the Worst Witch of the West. Sirius, as usual, sits by himself, a nice-sized stack of books acting as a buffer between him and the rest of his classmates. 

"What's a fancy way of saying 'stupid as all get-out?'" James scratches out a line of his essay. 

"'Incurably obtuse.'" Remus twirls his quill in idle fingers. "Did you know that none of the Slytherins will even look at him -- yesterday before Herbology, I saw Piers Parkinson shut a door on his face, just as he was trying to come inside."

James snorts, unscrolls another inch or so. "Piers Parkinson's incurably obtuse."

"That's not the point." Remus scratches a twinge at the nape of his neck. "I mean, I know they're all gits, but -- he must've done something really rank to get to them like this."

"It's because he's one of them," James says.

"What?"

"Or at least he should've been -- He's a Black. They've been Slyth for ages and ages; it's tradition. He's the black sheep or something." James grins. "See what I just did there?"

Remus gives an aggrieved sigh. Across the hall, Sirius frowns, scribbles something down on his parchment. He licks his index finger, tongue darting out, and turns the page. 

Remus drops his eyes. "No wonder they hate him." His mouth has gone all chalky. "I don't even know why he's in Gryffindor anyway -- I bet none of the other houses even wanted him."

James gives an indistinct hum. 

"He's such a prat."

"I think I'd probably be a bit of a prat, too," James says steadily, "if my parents kicked me out of the house when I was seven."

Remus blinks. "What?"

James just nods. "Been living with his uncle for ages -- my mum told me about it, apparently they're our long-lost sixteenth cousins, or sommat. 'S why he never gets any mail."

Remus's stomach caves in on itself. "Oh," he murmurs. Bile rises to his throat. He gulps it back, pushes down the guilt that swells up with it. 

They're slated for a double Potions session after lunch, their first real practical of the year. The Slytherins and Gryffindors file in together, but split off into pairs along house lines. Remus watches as the double benches fill with matching ties. Sirius sits alone for a long while, on the far right of the room, by the supply cupboard where the chill always comes through. When someone finally comes to sit beside him, it's a Slytherin -- Remus doesn't remember his proper name, but he knows the professors call him Snape. He and Lily Evans sometimes eat lunch together, much to James's derision about "fraternizing" across House lines, and it's James who coined the nickname all the other students use to refer to him -- Snivellus. 

James slaps their basket of ingredients onto the table, nearly upending it. "Calming Draughts, Calming Draughts -- didn't I say it would be Calming Draughts?"

"You said we wouldn't have our first exam until November." 

Sirius and the other boy don't speak. Remus wonders if they know one another, if they've wound up paired together before. If they'd met before Hogwarts -- especially if Sirius had meant to be in Slytherin, because everyone knows that you couldn't get into Slytherin if your parents were Muggles. 

Professor Slughorn clears his throat ominously, and Remus looks away.

"I know we talked about Calming Draughts last week, just at the end of class." James digs through his satchel, sending up a shower of scrap paper and broken quills. Remus ducks a Chocolate Frog wrapper.

"Don't worry, I've got my book," Remus says, sliding the heavy tome across the table. "Do you want to read the steps, or should I?"

"I'll read. You do prep. After all, I am the brains of this operation."

Remus rolls his eyes and sets to work, lighting the cauldron flame and measuring out the ingredients with careful hands. The whole first week of class, Professor Slughorn had made them practice techniques, drilling them on the difference between slicing, dicing, and julienning various slimy ingredients. Remus took to the work easily enough; it reminded him of helping in the kitchen at home. Some of the students whose families relied on magic didn't fare so well, though, and after the third time Professor Slughorn reattached James's severed little finger, he had deemed him better suited to an advisory role than an active one.

"How much frogspawn do we need?" Remus unscrews the lid of the jar, wrinkling his nose at the vile odor that wafts up. 

James squints at the page. "Ah, three globs or so? Add it after the crushed lilac."

According to their notes, Calming Draughts are supposed to come out a peaceful, woodsy green -- the color of the ocean at dawn, the textbook helpfully supplies, or the leaves of an elm tree in midsummer. 

"What do you think?" James squints. 

The mixture burbles ominously.

"It's not very peaceful, is it?" Remus says.

"No," James shakes his head. "I think it's a bit tweedy, if anything."

"Or -- seasick."

Professor Slughorn's rotund shadow falls over them both. "Perhaps if you read the next page in your book," he says, stroking his whiskers. 

"Oh! Right, then. Thanks, sir." James flips the page, smiling up at Professor Slughorn like the enormous kiss-arse that he is. "Okay, right -- it says we can enrichen the color of our potion by adding one dram of goat horn shavings. It's worth a shot, yeah?"

Slughorn's fleshy hands clap them both on the shoulder. "That's the spirit!"

Remus takes his measuring spoon and parchment out of his kit, and goes over to get them some shavings from the supplies closet. Most of the other pairs, he sees, are having about as much luck as they are; Peter and Gideon's cauldron is more brown than anything else, and there's a smell of rotten eggs coming from the back of the room that can't be good. Lily, who's better at Potions than the rest of their house combined, has managed a sort of teal color to hers; she gives him a sympathetic wince as he passes.

There's a cluster of students around the closet, and Remus queues up behind the others, next to Sirius and Snape's table. Their cauldron bubbles and hisses, and Remus sees that their potion has turned a rich green, almost matching the stripes on Snape's tie. Sirius's head is bent low over his notebook, taking down observational measurements in his cramped, spiky handwriting.

Snape says something to Sirius. Remus can't hear the words, but the disdainful tone is clear. Sirius's face goes pale and then red, and his fingers tighten around his quill so hard that the feather quivers. He keeps his head bowed over his own paper, but Snape continues to talk out of the side of his mouth, and Sirius's shoulder blades creep up higher and higher. 

The queue moves up, but Remus hangs back, shuffles a few inches closer to Sirius and Snape. 

"...you're nothing," Remus catches Snape mutter. He takes another step towards them.

Sirius's gaze, dark and molten, fixes him to the spot like an insect in a glass case. 

"What's the hold up, then?" Professor Slughorn calls out. "Fifteen minutes left!"

Remus shakes his head, and turns without looking -- just as Peter steps forward with the imperfect contents of his cauldron balanced in his hands. 

Everything pretty much goes to hell after that.

 

\--

 

Sirius finds him outside after everyone else has left. Remus is rubbing brown gunk off the underside of his chin, the crevices of his ears, when a hand grabs his shoulder and whirls him around.

"You been staring at me," Sirius says, pointing an accusatory finger square at Remus's chest. 

Remus's breath stutters. "I haven't."

"No?" Sirius exhales sharply through his nose. "Liar."

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." Remus says.

" _Sorry_ ," Sirius echoes, spitting it.

"I don't -- " Remus rubs his forehead, looks down at the floor. Sirius's shoes wink back at him, black and polished so that they catch even the murky dungeon light. Shoes, Remus thinks, who pays for Sirius's shoes.

"I know about you," Remus says quietly. "And I'm sorry."

He's flat against the wall so fast that he goes dizzy, Sirius's bare forearm braced up against his collarbone, pinning him down. Remus has got the height but Sirius has the weight and the anger behind it, snarling right up in Remus's face. " _What do you know?_ "

"Nothing, I -- nothing!" Remus's hands scrabble for purchase on the smooth stone walls, trying to brace himself to push Sirius away but he's too strong. He turns away, tries to catch his breath, tries to remember what he could have said.

Sirius bears down on his arm, choking off the air to Remus's lungs. "Tell me what the fuck you think you know about me, you halfblood scum!"

"Sirius," Remus gasps, coughing, "please, Sirius, I can't -- "

"Say it!"

"Your parents!" His vision is going spotty at the edges, blood roaring in his ears, "James told me about them -- he said they k-kicked you --"

"SIRIUS BLACK!"

A blast of white light and Sirius goes flying back ten feet. Professor Slughorn brandishes his wand, angrier than Remus has ever seen him. "What is the meaning of this?"

Remus shudders to his knees. His ears clang like a belfry and his vision is swimming, his lungs screaming for air. Professor Slughorn is still raging, fuming about how "you, out of all people, should know better than to do something like this!" and half-dragging Sirius down the hallway. Sirius won't meet his gaze, won't look at either off them, his eyes cast firmly downward, his hand tugging down the sleeve of his opposite arm.

His opposite arm where, Remus is absolutely certain, there's a deep, nasty scar. 

 

\--

 

Gryffindor loses thirty points. At dinner, the table's abuzz with the news: who could have lost them, what they could have done to dock so many in so few hours. Remus pushes his bread around his plate, sopping up the brown sauce from his steak and potatoes. The whole thing turns into a soggy, sodden mass; when the house elves come, he pushes it away without having taken more than a few bites. 

"You all right?" James asks, pushing his glasses up his nose to peer at Remus across the table. "Y'look a mite peaky."

Remus nods. "Tired," he says after a beat.

"Bet it's that Calming Potion," Peter chimes in, and Remus does his best impression of a smile. 

Sirius doesn't show up to dinner at all. When they go back upstairs, the curtains around his bed are drawn shut, so tight that Remus can't tell if there's even anyone in there. He stands in front of Sirius's bed for a long time, as Peter and James go about putting on their pyjamas and getting ready for bed. Even when James threatening to charm footies and bunny ears to Peter's pyjamas, and locking him out, the curtains don't rustle.

It's not meant to be a secret, but somewhere along the way it ends up becoming one. Remus doesn't like secrets, not as a general rule. But each time he starts to tell James about the fight, about the look on Sirius's face and the jagged line of puckered skin on his forearm, something stops him. The words catch in his throat and he ends up looking around for Sirius. 

More often than not, Sirius is staring back at him.

There are more fights. Autumn expands across the school, and somehow the falling leaves and cold mornings act as tinder for little snits and petty grievances that flare up without warning. Sirius is at the center of most of them; he's got a fast tongue and a faster temper and no sense of his own limits. It's almost admirable, his reckless courage against much older students -- like a dog, Remus thinks, who can't tell his own size and doesn't know to be afraid. Through all of it, Sirius holds his own, except for those times he doesn't, and Remus finds himself bringing Sirius's papers to the Infirmary so often that they start partnering together on assignments. It's easier to bring Sirius up to speed on coursework when they've been doing it together from the start. 

They're not friends; Remus has enough of those to know that this is something else. Something more fraught, more susceptible to Sirius's moods and Remus's reservations. Still, they talk, a little, about Quidditch and books and their professors. Sirius wants to try out for the team, next year. He's read more Muggle literature than Remus would have thought, but he's too restless to sit down with a novel and see it through to the end. He's smart, too, in a sort of affectless, easy way that Remus can only admire. 

Neither of them ever mentions that day in the dungeons. Christmas is drawing in before they even come close -- they're sprawled on opposite ends of a couch in the common room, working out Transfigurations proofs for the end of term. _Describe, in no less than seven inches, the distinct morphological and phenomenological changes that occur in a lesser-to-greater transfiguration, as discovered by Bertolt Brimaldi._

"You going?" Sirius's voice startles Remus out of an extended digression about the Wizarding world and its penchant for absurd names.

"Hm?" He looks up, gathers himself. It's late enough that the common room's mostly deserted -- just a few older students, hunched over the study carrels by the windows. Remus recognizes a Prefect playing chess alone, muttering strategy at her pieces and tweaking them between her thumb and forefinger when they argue back.

"Are you going home. Next week."

He nods, pushing away his fringe when it falls in front of his face. Sirius is looking at him again, fixed and searching. Remus still isn't sure what he's trying to find there. He casts around for the right way to answer. "It'll be good to get a break, I expect."

Sirius sniffs, and it might be a laugh if Remus didn't know better. 

The fire hisses and pops, conversant with itself. The light it throws at the walls rebounds in uncertain patterns over them both. Sirius looks different here -- older, maybe, like he's aging faster than the rest of them. Remus can see hints of the man he imagines Sirius will become in the strong lines of his profile, the set of his jaw. 

"It's dead dull," Remus says. Then, "You should write, if you've got time."

"Yeah?" There's something fragile, hesitant in Sirius's voice. Remus feels warm to his toes, bumps Sirius's knee with his own.

"Definitely."

 

\--

 

Remus spends sixteen days in Abergavenny. He receives:

-six (6) Muggle books, plus one (1) Bestiary from his dad, bound in leather and sealed with three copper clasps  
-four (4) new shirts  
-three (3) LP records  
-one (1) brown tweed Philips portable record player  
-two (2) hand-knit jumpers from his mum, one in crimson and one in heather grey "for when you're not feeling especially spirited," and  
-one (1) letter from Sirius Black

His mother keeps a wary eye on the owl, who settles itself on top of the refrigerator and refuses to budge until Remus comes to take the letter himself from its hooked beak. Its glassy yellow eyes stare haughtily at a spot above Remus's head, and Remus strokes its feathers, murmuring a thanks. He goes to give it a piece of toast, but his mother bats his hand away; "And you'll be cleaning up its droppings if it makes a mess up there," she warns. 

The owl flies out the open window, screeching reproachfully.

Remus takes the letter up to his room. He sits on his bed, legs crossed beneath him, and breaks the seal, catching the bits of wax in his cupped palm and throwing them into the bin. Sirius's familiar handwriting looks different, somehow -- messier, with harsher up and down strokes. 

 

_28 December 1971_

_Dear Remus,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. This is Sirius Black, from school. How are you? I am well. It is quite cold._

_Did you get good gifts from your family this Christmas? The best present that I got was a new broom. Its a Nimbus 777, with a hand-carved broom shaft and special streamlined bristles, as well as a really cool case. I think that we should take it flying when we get back to school. (I bet you are a really good flyer.)_

_You don't have to write back, because we are going to see each other soon. Besides Hector -- that's the name of the owl, who belongs to my uncle -- isn't very nice to new people. Please do not let him near your fingers, he has been feeling stroppy since someone fed him a stone (Which was not my fault)._

_Yours sincerely,_

_S. Black_

 

Remus smooths his hand over the page, feels the faint pattern of grooves where Sirius's quill had pressed in with extra force. On the last day of term, Sirius's trunk had been packed like the rest of them, but he wouldn't say where he was going, and none of them had pressed him on it. Remus wonders what it must be like, spending Christmas with distant relatives -- or even worse, at school. His eyes sting with sudden and unwelcome tears; he pushes them aside and slides the letter in between the pages of the Bestiary.

He rereads it half a dozen times before term starts.

 

\--

James catches him by the sleeve on the way to the Welcoming Feast. 

"Lu," he mutters, "hold on, I've got something you need to see."

Remus hangs back, letting the crowd of students flow around him. He throws a glance over his shoulder, but Sirius is nowhere to be found. "What?" 

"No, come on," James says, tugging his sleeve, "I need to show you something."

"James, we can't; the feast is about to start." Remus cranes his neck -- maybe Sirius hasn't arrived yet? 

"They'll never miss us," and already James is pulling him in the opposite direction of all the others, making his apologies as they push through a sea of robes like minnow, or salmon, or whatever fish it is that jumps up waterfalls. If you want something, Remus has learned from James, it's always best to act as though you're already sure you'll get it. 

The stones of the castle floors are slick with melted snow; Remus nearly loses his balance climbing back up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower and the boys' dormitory. He does his best to keep up with James, who's jabbering on about what a brilliant Christmas it had been, and did you know that Muggle kids actually thought that _elves_ made all their presents, which is just utter rubbish, because the elves at James's house have to be sweet-talked into making him a measly sandwich, or ever since James's mother caught him using them as goal posts on his makeshift indoor Quidditch pitch. 

The dormitory is in somewhat of a state: after two weeks' holiday, the unpacking process turns chaotic within minutes’ time. Remus shoves a pile of folded clothes off his bed. Sirius's section of the room is still mostly deserted, curtains drawn. 

"Hold on a tick," James says, head-first into his trunk, "I know I've got it here somewhere." Shoes, books and other projectiles go flying as he digs deeper. "Bollocks, I can't've forgotten it, that's just -- aha!" He turns, holding something in his arms.

"It's." Remus blinks. "A blanket."

James sputters. "It's a cloak!"

"Oh, right," he says, nodding. "Ah. Congratulations?"

"There aren't words for how much I hate you." 

Remus grins. "You may hate me, but I'm not the one whose parents gave him some used cloak for Christmas." He leans back against the bedpost, crossing his arms loosely over his chest.

"Oh, is that what you think," James smirks, "just some used cloak?" He unfurls it out to the side like a matador with a red flag, and there's something strange about the fabric, the way it shimmers and curls in on itself, almost translucent in the light of the waning moon outside.

James drapes the cloak over himself with a dramatic gesture -- and promptly disappears.

Three things happen in very quick succession, then: James pulls what is obviously a Terrifyingly Magical Cloak off, revealing his body again in a horrifying succession of disjointed limbs - Remus gives a big, girly scream - and Sirius's bedcurtains burst open.

"What's wrong?" He looks between them, hair sleep-mussed, cheek creased with pillowmarks, eyes bleary.

"It's nothing," James says, stuffing the cloak behind his back. "Just, ah. Showing Remus my Christmas gifts. Eh, Remus?"

Remus gives a little sound that he hopes is vaguely like agreement. His heart is busy trying to find its way out past his teeth, and he wills it back down into his chest cavity. "You're -- you're here?" he says, panting hard.

"Yeah." Sirius clearly doesn't believe them, but he just gives a little nod, "um, I got in Thursday. My uncle, he had to go away on business."

"Welcome back, mate." Remus can tell that James is staring pointedly at him, willing him to stay quiet about the Cloak, but he honestly can't scrounge up the energy to care about that, at the moment.

Sirius looks -- horrible. Wrung out, Remus thinks, like a sponge left on the lip of a kitchen sink. He's thinner than Remus remembers, even in wool pyjamas. Mottled purple half-moons bloom under his eyes, and his sallow skin seems no thicker than a sheet of tissue paper. There are bruises, most places that his clothing doesn't cover. 

Sirius shifts under their scrutiny, self-conscious. He lifts a hand to scratch at his hair, baring a band of skin at his waist -- bandage, Remus thinks, seeing the scratchy white fabric. Someone's bandaged his ribs. 

"Merlin, mate," James gawps, "what did you do, lose a fight with a _bear_?"

Sirius's eyes go wide, his gaze flashing to Remus. He swallows thickly. "Ha," he says, weak. "I wish. Bit of a skiing accident. You know how it is. Tree trunks at dangerous speeds while balanced on two bits of wood."

Bullshit, Remus thinks, and the word surprises him by how easily it comes, how adamant it feels. He's never been skiing, only sledding at the hill above the cannery with the other boys from his street, and this isn't right, not at all. Something's wrong, and he doesn't know what it is, but it makes his teeth ache and his stomach twist. He can't look at either of them, James's sharp gaze and Sirius's willfully obtuse one. The room feels too small, all of a sudden, like the walls are squeezing out all the oxygen. Remus closes his eyes, takes a great heaving breath as if on the verge of a sob, but when he exhales, what comes out instead is a laugh.

He claps a hand to his mouth, but it's too late, he can't stop himself. Big, stupid guffaws and it's all just so absurd, so completely _insane_ : James with his cloak that can make him invisible, Sirius with his bandages and his bruises and the secrets he won't tell, and Remus in the middle of it all, shoulders shaking, tears streaking his face, laughing like he's going mad, or maybe like he went mad ages ago and just never noticed.

Sirius looks at him, and oh god, Remus thinks, I'm about to get decked or hexed out the window... but then James is laughing with him, cuffing Sirius on the shoulder -- gently, so gently -- and telling him he's an utter plonker, an absolute tit, did he understand the point of skiing was not to get a head full of splinters, I mean, honestly. 

And when Sirius finally starts to laugh, too, -- a little shocked, a little forced, but his cheeks start to color and his eyes shine behind the dark blades of his fringe -- Remus feels something in the air knit itself into place around them.

 

\--

 

Things change. Remus thinks that maybe change isn't the right word: it's only been four months since school began, and they'd barely even created rhythms that could be disrupted. He thinks about being in this place, being among these people, for the next seven years; he tries to remember who he was seven years ago. 

Remus's mum has a picture of him at aged four hanging in the nurse's office where she works. He's sitting in a rowboat, balanced between his father's knees. The orange life vest nearly swallowed his small frame, a fisherman's cap plunked on his head. Elterwater, where Mum's parents had let a cottage. Remus tries to remember it, but all he can find in his memory are shards of that moment in the photograph: the lap of the waves, his father's encouraging _smile, Remus!_ , the smell of trees and freshwater and wet wood. He's not even sure whether they're real, or whether he's stolen them from the photograph. He wonders about the person he'll be seven years from now, whether he'll remember any of these days with enough clarity to be certain they happened.

"We have to do something," he tells James. _Hogwarts, A History_ sits between them, propped open to a map of the grounds when the school was first constructed; James reckons he found a secret passageway out of the Castle last night.

"What can we do?" James licks his thumb, turns the page to another set of schematics.

"We -- " Remus freezes when he hears the portrait swing open. A group of third years troop in, and he turns back to James. "I don't know. Just. Something."

"Right." James looks to the door, then back at Remus. He shakes his head, jots something down in his Book of Cunning Schemes. (Remus's Christmas present to him, with the title embossed on the cover in gold by his father's quick wand strokes.) "Well, you figure it out, and let me know."

"We could tell someone," Remus presses. "One of the professors, they -- "

"They'd what?" James says, sharp. The third years look up; he drags his chair closer to Remus and drops his voice. "How many times have we spotted him coming out of Infirmary in the morning after he's not in by curfew? How many times has one of the professors sent you up there with his schoolwork 'cause he's gone and got the snot kicked out of him again? How many notes has McGonagall written him for missing class?"

"That's -- "

"Look, either they don't know, and they're too thick to figure it out, which means they won't be any use stopping it. Or they _do_ know, and they don't give a damn about him. And it's still no use."

"It's not right." Remus shakes his head. He rubs his face, hunches in on himself. 

"Course it's not." James lays a hand on his shoulder. His eyes behind his glasses are huge, solemn. "Which is why we gotta do the best we can, yeah?"

"Yeah." Remus swallows around the lump in his throat. "Yeah, I guess so."

So they do. Remus starts portioning out his sweets from home in piles of four instead of three, and if Sirius receives more than his share of chocolates and tangerines, no one complains. He still doesn't come down to breakfast every morning, but even on days when he doesn't there's a place saved for him, and Remus and James stow away fruit, warm buttery rolls and bacon wrapped in linen napkins to share with him in the corridor before class. 

One day a tall, terrifyingly beautiful Slytherin calls Sirius a blood traitor on the walk from lunch to Charms, and it's James who draws his wand, spitting off a spell that douses her perfect black hair in a thick layer of pondscum. (Three days' detention, ten points lost, but James swaggers around like a champ when Professor Flitwick remarks that a hex of that calibre shows a surprising degree of deviant genius in a First Year.) Even Peter, who could barely pronounce Sirius's name without stuttering in terror those first few months, does his best to be kind; he shows Sirius his collection of Martin the Mad Muggle comic books, and they spend an entire week peppering Remus with questions about "tellyfoams" and how does a kettle get hot if you don't cast a spell to warm it.

One night, Remus shows Sirius his Bestiary. They sit together, arranged cross-legged on Sirius's bed, curtains thrown open and the waxing moonlight their silent co-conspirator.

"I have to be careful with it." Remus fingers the cover, tracing the embossed letters. "My da said I had to keep it in a special place, because it cost a lot of money."

Sirius's eyes look very big in the almost-dark. "He got you it?"

Remus nods. "I mean. I like lots of stuff. But I like books a lot. And this one," he flips open the cover, turns the body so it's angled between them, "it's just got the best pictures." He turns to a random page: a snake, with cat's ears and a tail that curled to form the first letter of its name. 

"Sepsa," Sirius reads aloud. "Small the serpent's bulk; / None deals a death more horrible in form. / For swift the flesh dissolving round the wound / Bared the pale bone; swam all his limbs in blood." He looks to Remus. " _Whoa_."

"I know, right?" Remus grins.

Sirius scoots over, his leg bumping against Remus's. "Wait, I wanna pick one." He flips through the pages, head down. "Have you read them all?"

Remus shrugs. "Most of them." He leans over, watching. "Oh, wait -- that's a good one."

"The Siren." Sirius looks down at the picture, frowns up at Remus. "That's a _naked_ woman."

"That," Remus says, "is a siren." He's pretty sure this sort of thing is supposed to be exciting, so he does his best impression of a leer, although the dragons are actually a whole lot cooler. He supposes she's pretty -- or, at least the part of her that isn't a fish.

"Your dad must be pretty cool."

"He's the coolest." 

Something flashes across Sirius's face, several emotions in quick succession. Remus tries to catch them, but they're gone too fast. 

"I'm sorry," Remus says.

"Don't be sorry," Sirius says, quick and vicious. He pulls his knees in against his chest. "I don't need anyone being sorry for me, and I don't want it."

"Okay," Remus whispers. 

"I'm not." He stops. Even in the dark, Remus can see Sirius tense, ready to run away or throw the first punch. He grabs at his forearms, fingernails digging into the sleeves of his pyjamas. "I'm not a _freak._ "

"I know that."

"Everyone looks at me, and they think they know everything about me. They think they know who I am, just because of what my name is, or what they've heard people say, and they don't. They don't know anything."

Remus tugs the curtains closed around them, mindful of the sleeping forms of James and Peter. " _Lumos_ ," he whispers. The ball of light falls around them like a halo, a protective shield against the outside world.

Sirius's features are pulled into a scowl. "I don't need them," he says. "None of 'em -- not that bitch who called herself my mother, or the twit she married, or my brother or my horrid fucking cousins. They could all rot, for all I care. I don't need anybody."

Remus waits for more, but Sirius stays silent, and in the end it's Remus who says, "Well, you've got us. Me and James and Peter." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, we're _friends,_ " Remus says, even though it's the first time they've ever said anything like it. "We look out for each other, yeah?"

"You wouldn't," Sirius says, accusing. "not if you knew everything about me. I've got secrets."

Remus's cheeks go hot. He stares down at his own hands, his long tapering fingers that look like a girl's. " Everybody's got secrets."

"You think so?" Sirius sounds skeptical.

Remus nods. Chances a smile. "I think that's one of those things that happens when you get older. Or something."

Sirius doesn't quite look like he believes that, but he doesn't look nearly as upset, either. So that's something. 

 

\--

 

On the morning of his twelfth birthday, Remus's breakfast sausages sing him the first two and a half verses of "Amazing Grace."

"That's the only song they knew," Peter says, poking at his oatmeal.

"It's very nice," Remus tells him. Peter's ears go pink with praise.

James reaches over, skewering one of the sausages in half and ending the song mid-refrain. "I told you, you should've asked Evans. I bet she knows loads of Muggle birthday songs."

Lily tosses her hair. Remus likes her well enough, although she can be sort of haughty when she wants to. "As if I'd ever help you with anything." 

This time, it's James's ears that go pink. 

"I got you a present," Sirius says, sitting to Remus's left. "But I left it upstairs."

Last night, Sirius hadn't been in his bed at curfew, hadn't been in any of the usual places when Remus snuck out to check: the trophy room, the last study carrel in the Library, the cupboard under the stairs to the Astronomy Tower. Remus had asked James to borrow the Cloak, to help him avoid Filch, but James didn't like to share it when he wasn't there to supervise, and he still hadn't agreed to tell anyone but Remus about what it did.

"How do you want me to trust him with this, when he won't even tell us what's going on with him?" James said.

"It's different," Remus said, even though he wasn't sure why. In any case, it hadn't mattered -- Sirius had vanished, just as surely as if he'd been magicked away, and this morning his bedsheets were made, his pillow was cool, and his frame was hunched over a plate of eggs and toast in the Great Hall. 

Remus swallows back half a dozen questions along with a bite of his sausage, and smiles. "That's grand. You didn't need to do that, mate."

"'S nothing." Sirius's knife is shaking as he cuts his toast into even pieces. His robes look too big for his body. 

"You all right?" Remus asks, and even as he says it, he can see Sirius shrinking back, shoulders pulling in and his head dipping lower over his plate. 

"I'm fine -- shit." The knife slips from his hands, clattering to the floor. James glances up; he and Remus share a look.

"Here, use mine," Remus says. He's almost done with his sausage, and anyway the thought of eating something that recently had a voice doesn't sit well with him.

Sirius glares at him. "'m fucking fine."

Lily's mouth tightens into a displeased moue at the swear.

"I know that," Remus says, eyeing the head table. Only a few of the professors come down for breakfast each morning with the students, but Sirius's voice carries easily and he's already lost Gryffindor five points this week. For his part, Professor Flitwick barely stirs, even when a house elf comes to collect his plate. "Do you want to go upstairs and get the gift now, or after class?"

"Whatever you want."

James gives a meaningful tilt of his head towards the doorway.

"Let's go now," Remus says. "I want to see, and this way we can head right to Herbology, yeah?"

The early spring sun is still low in the sky, tamped down by a layer of fog. Eddies of shadow cling to the edges of the hallways, dark patches where the morning hasn't yet reached. The few students they pass are rubbing at their eyes, or the spot of jam on their sleeve; even the portraits haven't quite woken. The Fat Lady gives a half-hearted wave as they step through the portrait hole, already settling herself back against her purple spotted sofa with a gusty yawn.

Remus takes each step with care, setting his foot down firmly on the smooth marble. Sirius walks along the inside spine of the staircase, his hand skimming the banister, and Remus stays beside him. Their shoulders touch at random intervals, fabric whispering against fabric. Remus thinks he sees Sirius's fingers approach his own before falling back.

The sunlight is just cresting over the top of the stairs when Sirius gives a sharp gasp and doubles over, crumpling against the banister.

"Sirius!" Remus crouches over him, grabbing at his arm. "Sirius, what's wrong?"

Sirius groans through gritted teeth, a low, animal sound that Remus barely recognizes. "Go. Away." He tries to turn away from Remus's grasp but something twinges and he gives another noise, his face contorted into a mask of pain.

"What happened to you?"

Remus goes to try and support Sirius, snaking a hand around his waist. Images from his mother's nursing texts flash across his mind -- fits and dizzy spells and wasting diseases that strike with no warning and Sirius won't look at him, won't say anything, but Remus can hear his breath coming in forced, pained bursts, the shuddering of his ribcage and the sticky seep of liquid through the fabric of his robes, oh god.

"Don't," Sirius mumbles, "you shouldn't," but Remus's hands are covered in blood, Sirius's blood, and it's only when Professor McGonagall comes rushing up the stairs (her hair still set in curlers, her tartan nightrobe pulled hastily over her pyjamas) that Remus realizes he's been screaming.

 

\--

 

They take Sirius away from him -- Professor McGonagall and an older student Remus doesn't recognize, who comes running up the stairs when Professor McGonagall summons her, green and silver tie akimbo and long brown hair spilling over her shoulders. A prefect; he can see her badge glinting in the light as they heft Sirius up in between them. Sirius gives a weak little moan, and Professor McGonagall takes out her wand. Remus doesn't recognize any of the spells she says, but Sirius goes limp and levitates between them, his eyes glassy and his face slack.

"Where are you going?" Remus says. "Where are you taking him?"

"Mister Black is going to the Infirmary," Professor McGonagall says. "And you, Mister Lupin, are going to your morning class."

"He just fell down," Remus says, gripping onto the banister and staring at the trickle of blood at the corner of Sirius's mouth. "We were walking upstairs, he wanted to get me my birthday present, and all of a sudden he fell, and I don't know what happened, it wasn't like a curse or anything. I don't know."

Professor McGonagall draws her lips into a thin line. "Mister Black's health is well under control, and is none of your concern regardless." 

"It's _not_ under control," Remus insists. "Please, if you'll just listen to me -- "

" _Class_ , Mister Lupin."

And then they're gone, down the staircase and through the portrait hole. 

Remus sits there for a long time, staring at his hands, watching the blood dry over the hills and furrows of his knuckles. Vaguely, he can hear the day begin to pick up speed, laughter and chatter and boots on the stones. He's sure to be late for class right now; James will be wondering what's happened to them.

It's the thought of James that gives him the idea. He takes the stairs up to the first year boys' dormitory two at a time, almost tripping over the hem of his robes. 

"Running late, Lupin?" calls one of the older boys, but he can't stop to chat, can't do anything more but give a vague hum of assent as he pushes open the door to the dormitory. 

Everything's a bit of a mess, but Remus knows exactly where to look, and in moments he has it: James's Invisibility Cloak, tucked away along with Remus's bestiary in their secret hiding spot, the space under the creaky floorboard by the window. 

The fabric feels soft, almost buttery. He wraps it over his shoulders, and a chill courses down his spine, like walking through a ghost when you don't expect it. 

"Off to make some mischief then?" the mirror on the door asks.

"I hope not," Remus says, and tucks the hood over his head. "It's my birthday."

"More's the pity," says the mirror.

The corridors are much busier now than they were a half hour ago, and Remus steps carefully, doing his best not to bump into anyone. He sees James and Peter down at the other end of the hall and his breath quickens, but James looks right through him, thwapping Peter on the head and steering him towards the greenhouses.

The same girl as before rushes past him, pushing open the door to the Infirmary. Remus ducks in after her. 

Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall are standing together, conferring with Madame Pomfrey in quiet, grown-up voices. Dumbledore looks much more solemn than he ever has the few times Remus has seen him, cheering at Quidditch matches or wishing all the students a happy year. He looks old, Remus thinks, old and quite somber.

"Ah," Dumbledore says, looking up. "Andromeda. Good morning."

"Where is he?" she says. "Where's Sirius?"

"Resting," Madam Pomfrey says.

"I want to see him." Andromeda glances past the professors toward a section of the Infirmary that's been cordoned off by white sheeting. All the other beds are deserted. She glares back at the professors, her fingers nervously tugging the ends of her tie -- she looks just like Sirius, Remus thinks.

"Unfortunately, my dear girl, a necessary precondition of rest is that it occur uninterrupted," says Dumbledore. "Even by well-meaning visitors."

"You said it'd be better this time." She points her finger at him like a wand in a duel. "You said it'd be easier on him, that you could do some things -- "

"Explore certain avenues of research," Dumbledore says, his voice still that soothing, smooth cadence. "Test certain hypotheses, whose eventual goal would be a substantive improvement of his condition."

"And?"

"And no one is sorrier than I am that we haven't made the progress I had hoped for." 

"No one besides Sirius, you mean."

Dumbledore's eyes soften; he places a hand on her shoulder. Her posture sags slightly to match. "I know you care deeply for your cousin. You must trust us, Andromeda. After all, we all want what's best for him, don't we?"

Andromeda gives a slight nod, her head bowed. She blinks several times, and says, "Will you tell him I've come? And I'll be back, later on."

"Of course we will," says Professor McGonagall. "What class do you have, Miss Black?"

"What? Ah, NEWT-Level Muggle Studies." Andromeda brings her hand up to her face. "Oh, buggering fu -- Ah, that is, I was supposed to take an exam today."

"Why don't you come with me, and I'll write you a note for Professor Burbage." Professor McGonagall leads Andromeda out of the Infirmary, and Remus sidesteps to avoid them. He sees her take one last fleeting glance at the curtains around Sirius's bed.

After they've gone, Madam Pomfrey turns to Dumbledore. "This can't go on, Albus."

Dumbledore sighs. Something changes -- the light, maybe, but he looks suddenly years older. "I'm well aware."

"When I found him this morning, he was fine -- came along, as meek as a lamb, well, so to speak. Settled down without a peep. But then I had to go down to get some fresh porcupine quills from Horace, and before you know it he's gone from his bed and I just don't understand it, Albus. I can't imagine why he'd risk his health like that."

"He's a twelve year-old boy, Poppy," Dumbledore says. "I believe a propensity to defy the imagination is part of his nature."

 _Eleven and three-quarters,_ Remus thinks. 

"If only we could talk to his family, persuade them to -- "

"You know that's not an option." 

"Well," Madam Pomfrey says, straightening out the starched pleats of her smock, "I'm at my absolute wit's end with the boy."

"Then I suppose it's for the best that we have twenty eight days in which to recharge our collective wit." Dumbledore folds his hands over the front of his robes, leans back on his heels. "In the meanwhile, I suggest we follow our own advice and leave young Sirius to his rest. I hear the sausages this morning are exquisite."

"You don't think he'll make another break for it?" 

"Oh, no need to worry." Dumbledore's robes sweep past, nearly touching the hem of the Invisibility Cloak, and there's a moment, just a split second, where Remus is sure Dumbledore looks directly at him -- and winks. "I'm sure he'll be quite safe here."

Remus stays crouched in his hiding perch long after the door creaks shut behind them. He can feel sweat pooling along the back of his neck under the smothering weight of the Invisibility Cloak, but each time he goes to move, the percussive echo of footsteps outside halts him. He licks the dry fronts of his teeth. 

At the primary school where his mother works, the nurse's office sits tucked next to the library, a small room that had once housed excess textbooks. Remus remembers going to visit her in the middle of the day, the warm-sounding bell that chimed when the door swung open and his mother's smile as she looked up from her desk. The room smelled like aloe and zinc oxide in the warm months, chamomile and peppermint in the cold ones, and though she'd would tut at him and claim he was just taking advantage of his poor mum to skive off class, she always let him help her water the plants that lined the windowsill, meting out just the right amount of water to make each flourish.

The Hogwarts Infirmary is big like a church and dead-smelling, all septic and sharp. Behind the white curtain, everything's white too: the metal frame of the bed and the small chair beside it, the sheets and the rolling cart with its porcelain basin and towels. And in the middle of the bed, Sirius, just as pale, except for the jagged spill of his hair on the pillow.

Remus kneels at his bedside. The mound of sheets and blankets that constitutes Sirius's form rises up from the mattress like an exercise in topography, a map they might look at before a flying lesson. Remus stares long enough that his eyes begin to water, but he can't see any movement to indicate that Sirius is still there, somewhere inside.

With shaking fingers, he reaches out, touching Sirius's chest about where he supposes his heart should be. He holds himself perfectly still, cuts off his own breath until he feels it -- Sirius's heartbeat thrumming against his hand, muffled and sluggish but there. And there's Sirius's breath, caged within the expansion and contraction of his lungs, the rise and fall Remus can feel. Proof, demonstrable and real, and Remus has to swallow back tears that swell up his throat like an allergic reaction.

You can't cry on your birthday, he tells himself. It's against the rules.

Remus startles when Sirius's hand settles on top of his own, fingers overlaid against fingers. He looks up, but Sirius's eyes stay closed, and his breath still comes at the same slow pace. Sirius's hand is warm and dry. His skin is softer than Remus expected. 

Carefully, he peels Sirius's fingers away one by one and resettles his hand against his side. Someone must have changed him out of his robe, Remus thinks idly, noting the blue and white striped pyjamas. There's a strange mark on Sirius's skin, just below the cuff; he leans in to get a closer look.

Four jagged scratches score Sirius's wrist, from the base of his palm to the edge of his sleeve. 

Remus steps back from the bed. His knees hit the back of the chair, and he sits down heavily. The room is hot, the air stifling the way it is in the summer, just before a storm rolls through. Remus's skin prickles, and he takes off the cloak, sliding it under the chair. His eyes keep coming back to the marks, and his mind keeps coming back to the same word: _claw._

The worst part is, Remus thinks faintly, it all makes sense. Like a Transfigurations algorithm, a knotted string of hypotheticals with one following the next, and the next, until the answer comes, clean and obvious, and illuminates all the steps before it. Only in Transfigurations, it's always been Sirius to walk him through it, in the Library or a corner of the Gryffindor common room, ink on his last two fingers and his shirt sleeves pulled down even on the warmest days. His smile hesitant but genuine, as if he could only give as much as he was expecting to get back.

 _Monster,_ a voice inside Remus's head hisses.

Remus looks at where Sirius lies, his still form small and broken. There's an empty space inside Remus's chest, a hole where he thinks he should be feeling something. Fear, betrayal -- he tries, but they're far away. As if everything was happening inside of a movie, or a book ... and now he thinks of the Bestiary, and that horrible drawing of a creature caught mid-change, the legs of a man and the torso of a beast, his shirt shredded to ribbons as he rears back and howls, teeth gleaming like knives. 

_Teeth,_ says the voice, _my, what big teeth you have._

Sirius stirs. When his eyes open, it takes them a long time to settle on Remus.

"What." 

The word comes out more like a croak.

"You fainted," Remus says, because that part's nearly true. "McGonagall came and brought you up here."

Sirius looks like he might still be half asleep. Remus thinks that's for the best. "Do you feel all right?" he asks, trying to sound gentle. 

Sirius blinks some more. "I don't know."

Remus doesn't know what to say to that.

"Are you all right?" Sirius says. He's staring at Remus's hands.

Remus looks down, and, "Oh! No, it's not -- it's not my blood. It's yours. Ah. _Scourgify_." Invisible bubbles dance across his skin.

Sirius's lips work, independent of any sound. He tries to sit up again, gets about halfway before sinking back down against the mattress. A groan catches behind his teeth. 

"You're supposed to be resting."

Sirius stills. "Pomfrey -- "

"Just left. She said you're supposed to rest." Anger kindles, sharp. He clenches his fist, unclenches, clenches again. "Why did you even come down to breakfast, if you were hurt?"

"I wasn't. I was fine, I just, I must have slipped on the stairs and fell. Clumsy," Sirius trails off.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying, I --"

"Shut up!" The anger expands, filling that empty place in Remus's chest. "For months, you've been -- and we all thought, I don't know what we thought, but we didn't know anything, and you just kept getting hurt, and you never said!"

"Remus -- " 

" _I know what you are!_ "

Sirius's mouth falls open into a perfect "o." He tugs the blankets up around himself, huddles down against the mattress. When he speaks, Remus can barely hear him. 

"How?"

Remus steadies himself. "Lots of little things. I don't know. I saw -- you've got a scar like you got scratched by claws. And when Dumbledore was in here before, he said something about twenty-eight days." Remus runs his fingers over the skin of his own wrist, feeling phantom claw marks there. "That's how long the Bestiary says it takes. For werewolves." 

The word scrapes up Remus's throat when he says it at last, but doesn't seem to have any discernible effect on Sirius. His eyes are fixed on the ceiling.

"Say something," Remus grits out. "For Merlin's sake, Sirius."

"Like what."

"Like -- how could you keep this from us?" _From me_ , he thinks.

"Who else knows."

"I don't know," Remus says. "No one, I don't think."

"James?"

Remus shakes his head. 

"You can't tell him."

"He's worried about you," Remus says. "We're your friends, Sirius."

Sirius scowls. "I don't have friends."

"That's not true -- you know that."

"You think James'd be my friend if he knew? You think Peter'd want me hanging about, if he had any idea I was a _monster?_ " Sirius says the last word like it's the worse curse he knows.

"You're not!"

"I am!" Sirius says, voice breaking. "You think you're so clever, you've got it all figured out -- you don't know anything about me! You don't know anything about my life! If I was really your friend, I'd tell you to stay the fuck away!"

Sirius's face is pale, except for the two spots of red on his cheeks. His hands on the blanket are curled into fists, and Remus can see the way he's drawn his whole body into one stiff line. His lips are curled into a snarl, and his eyes are wild, as if he'd say or do anything to hurt Remus, just to get him to leave. Like a wild animal, Remus thinks, but the comparison fades when he meets Sirius's gaze and sees the fear there. 

Remus sits up straighter in his chair. Swallows, and says, "Well, you can forget about that. I'm not going anywhere. So -- so you're just going to have to deal with it."

"Remus."

"It's my birthday. I can spend it where I please. And I'm staying here. Whether you like it or not."

They sit in silence for a long time after that. Remus counts the number of beds, the high arches of the ceiling, the lit sconces on the wall. He avoids looking at Sirius for as long as he can, but his gaze drifts back towards him eventually. 

"It happened when I was little," Sirius says, quiet enough that Remus strains to hear him. "My parents had -- I guess he was a business partner. I don't know. I don't remember. There was a falling out. My mother said something to insult him. She made him angry. He came back and did this to me to punish them. To teach them a lesson about pride."

Sirius keeps talking, steadily louder. "They didn't know what to do with me. My family's old. Like, really old, and there's never been anyone _defiled_ like this, not in hundreds and hundreds of years. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," Remus can hear the capital letters, "and I was a disgrace to everybody. 

"They tried all sorts of cures. Dark Magic, really bleak stuff that -- I'd wake up, and I knew I wasn't better, because I could see it in their faces, how disappointed they were. Not just because it didn't work. Because I was still alive. At least if I were dead, they'd be able to forget about me."

Remus wonders if it's possible to hate people you've never met. He wipes his clammy palms on his trousers. "Is that why you live with your uncle?"

"Yeah." Sirius stares back up at the ceiling. "They made a bedroom for me, down in the cellar. It didn't have a window so I couldn't see the sky at night. They thought it would trick my body. He came and got me one day. He said I was a boy, and I was his nephew, and we could go live in his house where I could go outside whenever I wanted. He gave me Muggle sweets, these caramel bars that were crunchy. I remember they stuck to my teeth."

"Caramacs," Remus murmurs. "They're called Caramacs."

"I liked them all right." 

"Are you hungry now?" He doesn't know what else to say. That there could be people like that, who'd do that to their own child -- he thinks of his parents, the way they looked when they were kissing him goodbye at Platform 9 3/4, the final squeeze of his father's hand on his shoulder.

Sirius blanches. "I don't think I should. I nearly lost it with those sausages"

"Yeah, well," Remus says, "that's not saying much." He rummages around in his pockets, and comes up with a slightly smashed chocolate bar. Holds it out.

Sirius eyes him. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Because I like you." Remus takes a breath. The only answer seems clear. "And I don't care what happens to you once a month -- the rest of the time, you're pretty all right."

"I could kill you," Sirius says. "I could kill you, and not even know I was doing it." His tone is solemn, matter-of-fact, as though he's thought this before. There's a hard glint to his eyes. 

Remus knows he's being tested. "Ever killed anyone yet?"

"No!" Sirius recoils. But I still could." 

Remus shrugs. "Right. I'll take my chances then."

"You shouldn't." 

"Eat your bloody chocolate."

And Sirius does.

 

\---

 

Sirius doesn't show up to class for the rest of the day. Remus takes notes with a precise hand, careful to make his letters clear and round. At lunch, he thinks about sneaking back up to the Infirmary, but James is watching him. Remus chokes down his food, and occupies himself with trying to turn the lenses of James's glasses into ice cubes. (It doesn't work, but James does end up with an icicle hanging off his nose, so Remus considers it time well spent.)

In the afternoon, James and Peter go out to the Quidditch pitch. Two weeks ago, the ground was still sodden with slush, the sad remnants of winter, but now the weak green of an early spring has broken thought. James is determined to earn a spot on the team come next fall, and he's appointed Peter his drill sergeant. As far as Remus can tell, this mostly involves Peter standing on the ground as James loops between the Quidditch poles on his broom, clapping politely and telling James how brilliant he is.

Remus goes up to the boys' dormitory. The sun is coming in at a different angle from the morning, but everything else feels almost the same. He skates his hand up the banister, and tries not to look for spots of blood on the stones. He doesn't see any.

Sirius is sitting on his bed when Remus comes in, the curtains open. He's kept his pyjamas on; Remus thinks the stripes make him look a bit like a criminal from an American film. The circles under his eyes have faded a little. His face is paler than usual, but when he sees Remus, he blushes.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," says Remus. He puts away his books, the back of his neck prickling. When he turns from his trunk, Sirius is looking out the window. 

"Ah, are you feeling better?" 

"Loads, yeah." Sirius picks at the white strip bandage on his wrist. Remus stares at it, the slashing claw marks clear in his mind’s eye, even if he can’t see through the fabric.

"The others are out on the pitch," Remus says. "I didn't tell them anything. I won't, not if you don't want me to."

Sirius nods.

"Do you want me to go, so you can get some more rest?" he asks, feeling out of his depth. His words clunk in his mouth. I've seen you bleed, he thinks, and bites the inside of his cheek.

"No!" Sirius's eyes go wide. He looks back out the window. "I mean, you don't have to."

"All right." 

"I didn't give you your gift yet," Sirius says, and pushes off the blankets, swinging his feet onto the floor. He winces a little, and grabs hold of one of the bed posts to stand. 

"Do you need help?" Remus goes over to sit at the foot of Sirius's bed, watching him rummage through his trunk. 

"It's fine, don't worry," Sirius waves him off with a distracted hand, "Pomfrey got me all sorted out before she let me leave." He holds up a shoebox, sloppily wrapped in old copies of the Prophet. "Here."

Remus takes the package, bobbling it a little. It's heavier than it looks, solid in his lap. "What is it?"

"Open it and see." Sirius sits next to him, biting at his thumbnail. 

The paper gives easily under Remus's fingers. He pulls off the top, and unwraps one of the two lumpy parcels tucked inside.

"It's a mirror," Sirius says. "Um, obviously."

Remus fingers the ornate handle, his finger tracing the carved embellishments. Two vines crawl up the sides, interlacing and bearing grapes. 

"There's another one." Sirius pulls it out, a twin of the first. "One for each of us, yeah?"

"They look very old."

"Suppose so -- they're magic," Sirius says. "Here, look," and holds one of the mirrors up to Remus's face. Remus's reflection floats up in the polished silver. 

Sirius grabs the other mirror, holds it up to his own face. "Remus John Lupin," he says, pronouncing his full name with emphasis on the consonants. "Now, look again."

Remus's reflection disappears, replaced by Sirius's face. 

"Whoa," he says, and looks up.

"It's so we can talk," Sirius says quickly. "Like, if we're at home over hols, or I'm in the Library and you're here -- "

"Or I'm here and you're in Detention for hexing off someone's eyebrows."

Sirius snorts. "Or that."

Remus spins the mirror in his hand; Sirius's face appears and disappears, front to back. "This is -- really cool."

"You like it?" 

"Tons," Remus says. "Thanks, mate." He hugs Sirius, wrapping arms around his back and pulling him in, careful not to squeeze too tight. Sirius gives a startled sound, but he doesn't pull away, leaning into the embrace. Remus thinks about this morning, about every morning before it, all the times Sirius has been hurting and Remus didn't know how to help him. Sirius smells like the Infirmary still, lye soap and bitter herbs clinging to his hair, and maybe there's something else there, something woodsy and wild underneath that Remus understands now. 

Neither of them let go for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> an old birthday present for [imochan.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan)


End file.
